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Tristan da Cunha 1937-1938

In 1937, a multidisciplinary team of scientists went ashore on Tristan da Cunha – the most remote inhabited island in the world. This Norwegian expedition would be the first thorough scientific study of this archipelago in the middle of the South Atlantic. Various disciplines were represented: geology, zoology, botany, dentistry, medicine and sociology.

By Anne Vaalund

Four years earlier, whaling fleet owner Lars Christensen had sent plants from Gough– an island in the Tristan da Cunha archipelago – to the Botanical Museum in Oslo, including three previously unknown species. This sowed the seed for a university expedition.

After many years’ planning, eleven Norwegians, one Briton and one South African set out on the adventure of a lifetime.